The diverting of the course of the river Turia in its passage though Valencia was made in order to remove the threat to the city from the river’s seasonal torrential floods, leaving an ample strip of land running through the city from west to east, alongside the historic city centre. Intervention on this site called for an in-depth urban design analysis regarding the channel of the Turia as a structuring element in the urban context, which thus required a scheme that was global and unitary, although not necessarily uniform.

Inspired in the Roman conception of the public space as a place...

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Turia’s Gardens

The design of a green space in the dry Turia riverbed first required an understanding of the city as a whole: its structure, form, and functioning. The city, as a framework for the intervention, and the riverbed, as the city’s...

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Turia River Gardens

Description

Extras

Turia’s Gardens

The design of a green space in the dry Turia riverbed first required an understanding of the city as a whole: its structure, form, and functioning. The city, as a framework for the intervention, and the riverbed, as the city’s...

The diverting of the course of the river Turia in its passage though Valencia was made in order to remove the threat to the city from the river’s seasonal torrential floods, leaving an ample strip of land running through the city from west to east, alongside the historic city centre. Intervention on this site called for an in-depth urban design analysis regarding the channel of the Turia as a structuring element in the urban context, which thus required a scheme that was global and unitary, although not necessarily uniform.

Inspired in the Roman conception of the public space as a place of encounter, the design was based on the landscaping and the continuing presence of water at key points to recall the rerouted river. The garden was developed from geometrical bases which, from the central longitudinal axis, defined the different zones and ordered the space and the paths through it. The various areas delimited by this geometry, and bounded by as a monumental public space, as a botanical garden, as a sports facility, etc.

Sections X and XI, carried out by RBTA, reinterpret the original idea in order to implement it with a very limited budget, and effectively create one of the most attractive areas of the city, opposite the historic “new town”.

The design of a green space in the dry Turia riverbed first required an understanding of the city as a whole: its structure, form, and functioning. The city, as a framework for the intervention, and the riverbed, as the city’s spine, were two basic concepts presiding over both the urban analysis and the design of the proposal.

The concept developed for the Mediterranean public garden was clearly based on a philosophy of natural balance between resources and design. Added to this was another symbolic aspect, inspired by the Roman notion of public space as a place of encounters, with different hierarchies of effects, and the use of trees and native vegetation like pines, cypresses, orange trees, palm trees, and olive trees.

The project includes a large pine forest which structures a sequence of gardens. These gardens have adopted the organic and casual form of the riverbed through their geometric composition, and provide a unity to the whole project.

The gardens begin with an orchard to the west of the city, along with a lake that serves as a reservoir for irrigation and permits sporting and leisure activities.

Between the Puente de San José and the Puente de la Trinidad, in front of the Torres de Serranos, there is a forum for the city. Its centralised character is like a hinge in the design of the gardens, which in turn responds to the symmetry derived from the urban fabric. This is the main space where large festivals, spectacles, carnivals, and fiestas take place.

The Puente de Serranos lies at the centre of the design; its geometry is deliberately simple, but round, hierarchical, and symbolic. Three elements aligned with the main axis articulate the space: an umbráculo, a theatre–plaza, and a pool of water. Each has a unique, assigned value and the relationship between different elements is determined by the laws and proportions of the geometric layout.

At their westernmost edge the gardens do not extend to the old river mouth, but deviate from it instead, connecting with the port and waterfront.

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